What One Man Said to Another: Talks with Richard Selzer

What One Man Said to Another is, on one level, a series of extended conversations between friends. On another, it is a spoken autobiography of Richard Selzer, respected surgeon and writer, as recorded by New York artist and writer Peter Josyph. In these pages we learn firsthand of Selzer's life as a surgeon in an isolated village in Korea in the early 1950s; the unforgettable evening when he saved the life of author John Cheever; his agonizing courtroom experience during a malpractice suit; the ostracism of colleagues as he trained himself, every night for eight years, to become a writer; and his encounters with notable personalities, such as Orson Welles, John Houseman, Richard Ellmann, Josef Albers and even one of "Charlie's Angels." The sparkling wit, profound insight, and unique poetic vision that characterize works such as Raising the Dead, Taking the World in for Repairs, Mortal Lessons, and all of Selzer's writing are present in every one of these lively conversations.

Peter Josyph is a bestselling author, editor, painter, and photographer. His work has appeared in Southern Quarterly, The Bloomsbury Review, Library Journal, Twentieth Century Literature, Studies in Short Fiction, and The Cormac McCarthy Journal. He edited The Wounded River: The Civil War Letters of John Vance Lauderdale, M.D., which was selected as one of the New York Times Book Review's Notable Books of 1993.